Before you go down to read the “recent” affidavits to correct/invalidate a previous MIN from WAF to Bank of America.

You have to first read the following…

Every loan is assigned a unique Mortgage Identification Number (MIN) that follows the loan from registration to payoff. The MIN appears on the mortgage or deed of trust.

Process loans, not paperwork ,SVP William C. Hultman

In the mortgage sphere, the MERS Mortgage Identification Number (MIN) has been in use since 1997 and has been assigned to over 65 million loans. The MIN is a combination of a unique loan identifier for the originating lender plus the loan’s internal file number. It is available for residential, multifamily and commercial loans. It can attach to a mortgage as early as the application for a loan. The MIN is then used to track a loan throughout its life cycle, from application through monthly servicing activities until final loan payoff. It is used also used within the loss mitigation and Real Estate Owned (REO) processes. The MIN is well integrated within all facets of the real estate finance industry.

The adoption of a new, different, and/or conflicting numbering system would result in greater confusion, unnecessary system development costs, longer lead times for compliance and decreased transparency by making it more difficult for industry participants to track assets across multiple data and reporting systems. The real estate finance industry would be required to add the new asset number to all of its applications, databases, and file transfers between applications. In certain situations, a new asset number may have unintended consequences in the primary residential mortgage market. If a lender has to decide at the time of application whether to employ the MIN or some other loan numbering system based on the lender’s estimation that the borrower may not qualify for a conforming loan (loans meeting the criteria of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac) or governmental mortgage (loans meeting the criteria of FHA, VA, or the Rural Housing Service), then the Proposal could unintentionally steer applicants to particular loan types. Alternatively, if a lender starts down one path and then needs to re-key an application, the chances for error increase.

The MIN is the only universally accepted identifier for loans in the mortgage industry across the entire lifecycle of the loan. The major participants in the residential mortgage industry utilize the MIN. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae all utilize the MIN. MISMO encourages the SEC to adopt the MERS Mortgage Identification Number (MIN) as the primary loan identifier for real estate finance ABS.